Apple iOS11: Advertising Pros & Cons

It’s a pop culture phenomenon. Apple rolls out a new and improved iOS that helps your storage, battery and at-home productivity… or perhaps decreases all three of the above. That, we’re still trying to decide.

With the update, we have seen a drastic enhancement to the user experience. From the addition of indoor mapping technology, Apple Pay peer-to-peer feature, improved Siri technology and option for auto deletion of old data to free up storage – as a consumer, iOS 11 is everything we didn’t know we needed.

While consumers are enjoying the new bells and whistles, we’re taking a look at what iOS 11 could mean for advertisers and our brands.

Pros:

Augmented Reality – Although this is not a “new” feature, iOS allows users to submerse themselves and get creative in their environments with the AR feature on iOS.

The Implications: Brands can allow users to interact with their products, make an e-commerce experience come to life, and instill confidence in their consumers as they’re making their purchases. Gone are the days of buying and toting home a big floor lamp, and realizing it doesn’t quite fit the motif of your living room.

QR Code Identification – With this feature, users no longer need to download and keep an app with the sole purpose of scanning and reading QR codes. This feature is a development that allows a simple point and scan by the use of the phone’s camera.

The Implications: Out-of-home environments just got a bit more interactive. This will allow consumers to engage with your OOH units in an experiential way and removes barriers to interaction.

Siri Enhancements – With Siri on-device learning, the personal assistant technology is learning more about your past search and app behavior, along with the ability to predict your future needs.

The Implications: Do we sense a future in Siri promoted “suggestions”?

Cons:

The Implications: Since programmatic buyers are able to leverage 3p data segments to target users on the internet, the idea that those user's identities will be wiped away will result in declines of scale within these behavioral segments on mobile.

Location Services – In the past, developers had to implement the ability for users to only share location “While using the app”. Now, users have this option with all of their applications.

The Implications: Like the intelligent tracking prevention feature, this too, could cut down on data collection through application usage.

It’s sufficient to say that the user experience has certainly improved with iOS 11. Advertisers, on the other hand, might be looking down the pipeline of a decrease in scale when it comes to programmatic mobile behavioral data. We are, however, optimistically looking forward to the future of AR, QR and other immersive features of this update.